How to format a KDP book description

Which HTML tags does KDP allow?

KDP's help page lists 12 tags for the description. Every tag needs an opening and a closing tag, like <b>bold</b>; <br> is the one that stands alone.

That is the full list: <b> <i> <em> <u> <br> <p> <h4> <h5> <h6> <ol> <ul> <li>. Links, images, tables, colors, fonts and font sizes are not on it.

How long can a KDP description be?

Up to 4,000 characters, and KDP's editor counts all of them, HTML tags included. Tags are cheap but not free:

"Book one of the Gull Rock series" = 32 characters
<p><b>Book one of the Gull Rock series</b></p> = 46 characters

The formatting costs 14 characters. KDP also suggests aiming for about a 150-word paragraph with sentences that are easy to scan, so for most books the limit is a ceiling you never reach.

What is not allowed in a KDP description?

KDP's help page lists these under book description restrictions:

• Pornographic, obscene or offensive content
• Phone numbers, mail addresses, email addresses or website URLs
• Reviews, quotes or testimonials
• Requests for customer reviews
• Advertisements, watermarks or promotional material
• Time-sensitive information, such as tour dates, seminars or lectures
• Availability, price or alternative ordering information
• Spoilers
• Unicode emojis
• Keywords or book tag phrases

The formatter removes emoji and flags anything that looks like a web address or email. The rest is up to you.

How do you format a plain text description?

Write blank lines between paragraphs and start list lines with a dash. This is a description typed as plain text:

One lighthouse. Three keepers. A storm that lasts a hundred years.

When Nora Vale inherits the lighthouse on Gull Rock, she expects a leaking roof and a lot of paperwork. She does not expect the logbook, written in her own hand, dated 1926.

Inside this book you will find:
- A slow-burn mystery told across three timelines
- A found family you will want to keep
- An ending you will not see coming

The KDP description formatter turns it into this HTML. This is the tool's own output, not a hand-typed copy:

<p>One lighthouse. Three keepers. A storm that lasts a hundred years.</p>
<p>When Nora Vale inherits the lighthouse on Gull Rock, she expects a leaking roof and a lot of paperwork. She does not expect the logbook, written in her own hand, dated 1926.</p>
<p>Inside this book you will find:</p>
<ul><li>A slow-burn mystery told across three timelines</li>
<li>A found family you will want to keep</li>
<li>An ending you will not see coming</li>
</ul>

Blank lines became paragraphs and the dashes became a bulleted list. The reader sees 391 characters and 71 words; KDP counts 443, because the tags count too.

How do you clean a description pasted from Word or Google Docs?

A paste from a word processor carries styles, class names and tags KDP does not support. A typical one, with an h2 heading, an emoji, a link, a font tag and a zero-width space hidden after "lot":

<h2 style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:20pt">One lighthouse. Three keepers. 🌊</h2>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-weight:bold;color:#1F3864">When Nora Vale inherits the lighthouse</span> on Gull Rock, she expects a leaking roof and a <span style="font-style:italic">lot</span> of paperwork.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font face="Arial">She does not expect the logbook, written in her own hand, dated 1926.</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><a href="https://example.com/nora">Read chapter one at example.com</a></p>

The formatter's output for that paste:

<h4>One lighthouse. Three keepers.</h4>
<p><b>When Nora Vale inherits the lighthouse</b> on Gull Rock, she expects a leaking roof and a <i>lot</i> of paperwork.</p>
<p>She does not expect the logbook, written in her own hand, dated 1926.</p>
<p>Read chapter one at example.com</p>

• The h2 became an h4, the largest heading KDP supports.
• Bold and italic set with inline styles became <b> and <i>.
• Removed unsupported tags, keeping their text: 1 <a>. Colors, fonts and class names went with them.
• 1 emoji and 1 invisible character removed.
• Flagged, not removed: example.com. A web address is not allowed, but only you can decide how to reword the line, so the tool leaves the text and tells you.

Delete the flagged line and the description is ready. This is how it reads:

How do you paste the HTML into KDP?

1. Format your description and copy the HTML.
2. In your KDP Bookshelf, open the book's details and scroll to Description.
3. Switch the description editor to Source, paste, then switch back to check how it looks.
4. Check the character count stays under 4,000.
5. Save, and look at the live Amazon page once the book updates.